Thursday, March 7, 2013

Endland: Adventures in Diplomacy

The PCs were send to a small town a few days from Tavor because a copper mine had been re-opened there and the city council of Tavor wants to secure the trade rights - copper is extremely valuable.

Getting the two PCs together was fairly easy and I think they make a great team, even though they may get on each other's nerves. While one of them has experience as an adventurer, the grasslands north of Tavor were new to both of them. They were quite nervous about making camp for the night and very much creeped out by an encounter with a hedgehog-ish creature. If you have ever encountered a hedgehog at night, you know that they sound much, much bigger and fearsome than they actually are. From their snuffling and grunting you'd think there's a wild boar next to the tent.

The negotiations for the trade rights went quite well and both parties are quite content with the result. The treaty will be finalised in the morning, it had gotten late (both in-game and in real life). However, the PC never asked to see the actual mine. At first I thought, well, he's playing it cool. Then it dawned on me that the player just had not thought about it.

I was tempted not to say anything and just let them walk away with a pig in a poke. But I decided against it, it would have been a dick move. The character has enough common sense to remember eventually, especially since he has been told in particular to take a look at the mine. We decided that he will remember in the middle of the night and it will be awkward enough to bring the subject up when it looked like only the formalities were left the evening before.

In any case, we will keep playing with just two players. It works well and that particular combination of characters offers a lot of story hooks for me.